User blog:NoahDavidHenson/Love and the Art of Prydain Wiki Maintenance
I love this site. I loved it six weeks ago, when I discovered it while looking for fan sites and artwork related to the series. And I love it now that I've invested hundreds of hours in editing, creating, uploading, examining and expanding its every page, image and link. I found it a very promising skeleton of a site, with some of the hard work already done for me in terms of format, structure and style. And as I sit back and review what the Prydain Wiki has become, I cannot help but smile -- fondly and with a modicum of pride -- at what I see before me. Five of the six books in the Prydain series have now been given complete chapter (or story) synopses, replete with links and graphics accompanying every summary. Only The High King remains, and I'm currently plowing through those chapter synopses as I read the book (aloud, to my adoring and appreciative wife!). Every character page has been given a major overhaul, expansion and image upload. Articles now exist detailing most of the important objects in the series, again replete with links and graphics. Realms, castles, natural sites, animals, even the concept of magic have all been given their due. So it is that I approach the end of the creation of a very detailed encyclopedia of Prydain, indeed the most thorough and complete collection of this kind that has ever been created. Even Michael O. Tunnell's excellent Prydain Companion, by dint of its limiting publication in a hand-held book, is not as detailed. Others have been instrumental in the development of this on-line encyclopedia. TimToolmanTaylor created this wiki in 2008. Assistant Wanderer, Toothless100, and S-Man-X-Men6 helped shape it into the form in which I found it, with hundreds of pages already created, and a basic layout for the presentation of material already in place. After I began work on it, Nsummerf showed up and helped me expand the Prydain-related image library now being constructed. Banaticus and a couple of anonymous editors have dropped by on occasion to polish a bit of writing, move some images around or add some salient detail to a character biography. And I couldn't be more pleased to see that several long-time contributors -- Artedisney, BlueDagger, Disneyvillainman, S-Man-X-Men6, Toothless100, and Uberfuzzy -- are now showing up on a regular basis to enjoy what we together have crafted: A loving tribute to Lloyd Alexander's masterful and wonder-filled Chronicles of Prydain. A resource for those wishing to base their games, fanfiction, artwork or personal fantasies on the enchanted land and its inhabitants. A guide to one of the most engaging literary creations of the 20th century, a high fantasy series which by my assessment is still vastly under-read and underappreciated -- though never, by those who have read it, underrated. So thanks to one and all for your contributions and inspirations. Thanks to all the artists and photographers -- and subjects! -- whose work adorns this encyclopedia. And thanks to all future editors -- for continuing to help me hone this site into the best, most visually remarkable, most accurate and most fun Prydain resource available. Thanks, especially, to Lloyd Alexander. NoahDavidHenson (talk) 19:33, April 7, 2013 (UTC) Category:Blog posts